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Composer of the Year is always a difficult category to judge because either there isn’t a single composer who’s done more than a single work in a year, or, in the case of 2012, all of our nominees had stellar years with multiple projects.

In this category, we select only one winner with no runners-up. So in case you’ve forgotten, our nominees:

This was an incredibly tough category this year. Even with eight nominees, there were several other soundtracks that were released that we wanted to include. When it came to selecting the overall winners, however, the team here at OSV was pretty quick to agree.

I want everyone to take a look at our list of nominees once again and take note of how few sequels and huge big-budget titles made the list. I think that says a lot about where the industry is going, and it’s definitely a good thing.

Kai Rosenkranz, composer of the Gothic series, once explained to me how a score can be too melodic. A great piece of music can be distracting to the player if it isn’t written with the experience at hand in mind. Often times, a beautiful piece of music does not match the action. That’s why we decided to have this category: to acknowledge the musical efforts of scores that enhance the drama perfectly within the context of the game, but that maybe don’t work quite as well as standalone works.

With surround systems becoming more and more affordable (and sophisticated), and Turtle Beach headsets conquering every in-store display, sound design has grown all the more relevant and essential to gaming experiences. The sounds of games seem to stick with us as persistently as the characters and gameplay. This year continued the trend with some jaw-dropping, eardrum-melting sound.

We didn’t announce nominees for this category, but we decided that in simplifying our categories, we might have simplified too much. We skipped over a category that’s very important to us: fan arrange / doujin.

So, after the jump, we’ll tell you what our three favorite fan arrange albums of 2012 were. (more…)

There’s no question that Square Enix invested heavily in arranged music this year. Half a dozen “SQ” albums, four piano solo arrange albums, a full orchestra album, a rock arrange release … one might say it was almost too much. At least as far as one’s personal budget goes.

But it wasn’t just Square Enix that produced great arrange albums in 2012. As a refresher, here are our nominees in this category:

Reprints, compilation albums, and previously unreleased material. Generally, we love all of these things. When great music becomes unavailable, it’s a problem. On the other hand, a glut of reprints and compilation albums can be too much, so we’re not in the business of celebrating or honoring all of them.

But we have three out of our six nominees that we want to give special awards to. Again, our nominees are:

Our “Other Release” category — a catch-all miscellaneous category for stuff that isn’t technically game music, but close enough that you all probably know about it — had some great nominees. There were plenty more than six albums to choose from. But we narrowed it to six, and now we’re going to give the bronze / silver / gold medals. Well, digital medals. Still pretty sweet, though (thanks Connary!).

2012 featured a host of emerging game composers. Some have come from television and film, and others from the ground up. The most important takeaway from all of this: these guys are good and we’re thrilled to have their music.

We’ve spent the entire week unveiling the OSVOSTOTY 2012 nominees, and it’s with great pleasure that we finally present to you our top picks for Soundtrack of the Year. This is always one of the hardest categories to come to a decision on, as you can imagine each staff member was fighting for their own personal favorites. We do, however, stand by our final list and think it represents the best of what 2012 had to offer.

I also wanted to take a moment to comment on the change in format for our fourth annual awards. In the past, we had separate categories for Soundtrack of the Year, Best Handheld Soundtrack of the Year, and Best Indie Game Soundtrack of the Year. With advances in technology and the rising prominence of indie games to the point where it’s difficult to discern what’s indie and what’s not, we believed it was important to combine these categories into a single Soundtrack of the Year category to level the playing field. We’ve opened the category up to eight nominees to accommodate, and you’ll find it interesting just how many “indie” games made the cut.

As always, chime in and let us know your favorite soundtracks of the year and who you’re rooting for. So without further ado…(more…)

Have you ever experienced music whilst playing your favorite games that made the dramatic moments so tense and the action so lively? And then, you bought the soundtrack, skipped over to that same part and – yeah, it was cool. But, you knew there was something missing from that listening experience. What was missing was living the moment in the context for which the music was written.

These moments are no less important than those that work just as beautifully separate from the game. It is for this purpose that we, here at OSV, choose to acknowledge those fantastic mood-enhancing and beautiful moments in a game’s soundtrack. Included in this category may also be games that did not receive a formal soundtrack release. Read on for the nominees! (more…)

Among the more overlooked aspects of game development from the common fan is that of sound design. Although we know that so many people choose to play their games blaring their own music or blathering to friends, there are still a great many of us who choose to take in the game’s ideal presentation with good, quality sound and music. Here at OSV, these unsung heroes of the gaming world who slave to create the perfect sound effect and music cease to go unrecognized!

Read on to find out the nominees for Best Sound Design of 2012! (more…)